TORONTO 90s RAVE DIARY

It happened in the Sixties too, of course, but the 'Summer Of Love' slogan first appeared on T-shirts around this time in '88, when the acid/Balearic boom was at its peak, when the clubbers opened their minds and loosened their clothes, and the party seemed like it would never end. Many of us felt it could never happen again. Nothing else could be that intense, that friendly, that big. Yet in the summer of '89, there we all were, not hundreds but thousands this time, driving round the M25, dancing in the fields. But the authorities moved in, and, for a while at least, the fun seems to be over. So what will we see in the summer of 1990? Rioting, say some, as frustrations bubble over; raving, say others, still optimistic in spite of the clampdown. Most, though, are pointing to the festivals, the gigs, the bands who came up in the last two years and are bringing an energy perhaps unseen in rock since punk. These are heady times: Adamski, New Order, and probably the Stone Roses to follow at number one; Happy Mondays considering playing Madison Square Gardens in New York... new music ;emerging from across the country. Much of it is awful of course: few of these bads will survive the initial hype, but that's not the point. The sun is shining, the attitude is there, and the summer starts here.

Introduction, the Face magazine, July 90 with reference to the article by Simon Dudfield titled, "the Third Summer of Love".